Frontier Science began its PHIA collaboration with ICAP at Columbia University in 2015 by providing LDMS installations, user support, training, and central database services across 14 mostly sub-Saharan countries in support of the Population-based HIV Assessment (PHIA) project. These countries include: Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. PHIA surveys are implemented under the leadership of each country’s Ministry of Health and by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), CDC, and by ICAP at Columbia University. In 2017 Frontier Science also began a collaboration with the University of Maryland School of Medicine on the PHIA Nigeria study (NAIIS).
The Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (PHIA) surveys directly measure HIV incidence, prevalence and viral load among those living with HIV. The surveys constitute the first multi-country population-level measurements of progress toward epidemic control targets, and show critical progress towards global HIV targets.
In support of the PHIA project, Frontier Science set up over 100 installations of the Laboratory Data Management System (LDMS Windows version) on tablets that could be used without an Internet connection in order to facilitate data collection across the households. The LDMS was also installed on laptops, which traveled to various locations within each country.
A new project, PHIA 2, will build on the on the notable achievements of the Population-based HIV Assessment (PHIA) project. The new initiative aims to continue and expand the effort to present an even more detailed picture of the epidemic.
Along with ICAP at Columbia University, the PHIA 2 project includes the following collaborating organizations: African Population and Health Research Center; African Society for Laboratory Medicine; Clinical Pharmacology Laboratory at the University of Cape Town; FHI 360; Frontier Science & Technology Research Foundation, Inc.; Institute for Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco; International Treatment Preparedness Coalition; Makerere University; Partnership for Supply Chain Management; PPD; and Westat.
LDMS Program Director Howard Gutzman will serve as the Frontier Science Principal Investigator; LDMS Project Coordinator, Alex Benns, will coordinate efforts at Frontier Science to provide LDMS support and central database services; and LDMS Lead Trainer, Andrew Lohrum, will coordinate all training initiatives.